Scouts challenged over religious promise

[rug]

18 April 2012
Last updated at 07:47 ET
By John McManus
BBC News

Atheist children are being excluded from the Scouts, the National Secular Society (NSS) has warned in a letter to Chief Scout Bear Grylls.

The NSS, which aims to restrict the role of religion in public life, says the scout promise, which refers to God, puts non-believers off joining.

And it asks why adults have to profess a belief in God to become leaders.

The Scout Association says membership continues to grow and the movement is more popular than ever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17757012

This is the U.S. Boy Scout Oath:

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

http://usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/bsoath.asp

Curiously, the BSA allows a Scout to do this as a Promise rather than an Oath.

[trotsky]

1. But... but...

I have been told that atheists most certainly are not discriminated against and basically need to STFU if people don't like them.

[rug]

2. How terrible.

Please post the STFU link.

[trotsky]

3. Always there to spread Christian love, aren't ya, rug?

You are a shining beacon of how Jesus would act, I'm sure.

[Ian David]

4. "Can't be in scouts because I'm an Atheist. Must drink my own piss." n/t

[trotsky]

5. Asparagus at night, morning's delight. n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Quakers, some Presbyterians, and other sects believe oaths are...

prohibited by scripture, and take the option to "affirm", or promise.

Although this sounds silly to some, it has been established law for quite a while, and accepted at all swearing-in ceremonies.

[Ian David]

9. I agree. But then they need to stop taking money from the government and the military. n/t

[Goblinmonger]

15. Do you still think that knowing they take government money? n/t

[dballance]

17. I did some more research and changed my mind

Screw the BSA

[trotsky]

24. Their PR arm does a good job hiding their worst aspects.

Even many liberal, progressive families in the scouts don't know how bad it is. (Or just refuse to acknowledge it.)

Good for you!

[jeepnstein]

8. Let them form an Atheist group then.

Scouting is far from a religious organization, although there is certainly a component of that in there. We promote interfaith learning as opposed to Christian proselytizing. As a young boy, the first Moslem I ever met was through Scouting. The kid was an Iranian, sorry "Persian", whose family got kicked out during the Ayatollah's rise to power. His story made a deep impression on me and my fellow Scouts.

Given the political climate of the time, he was run out of every Troop in the area until he found us. Our Troop was the end of the line and took in strays. Somehow one of the toughest kids in our Troop understood that Mehridad was just like us in many ways and therefore his fate was going to be all our fates. He didn't get bullied at camp after that. Great guy, natural leader, and all around more fun than a barrel of monkeys he was.

If a kid in my group was indeed an atheist, we'd work with him any way would could short of telling the rest of the boys to turn their backs on their own faiths.

[trotsky]

10. Should homosexuals form their own scouting group too?

Certainly wouldn't want to tell the rest of the boys to turn their backs on their hateful, intolerant faiths.

[jeepnstein]

13. That's a really tought subject.

Scouting doesn't promote gay bashing. I am always given the impression that they'd rather not discuss it at all. Given that the focus of the group is a bunch of very young boys I can understand why. It's a conversation that should take place between the boys' parents and himself, not some Scout leader or camp staff.

Personally, I think the interfaith concept in Scouting is a reasonable approach. I encourage my Scouts to take part in the activities but keep my mouth shut about my deeply held personal beliefs. It's not my place to use a position of authority to impose Christianity on someone who is unwilling to embrace it. Nor would I want one of my Scouts who doesn't believe to ever think for one second that my love and respect for them is somehow tied to them thinking exactly like I do. When I am tasked with an interfaith service I emphasize this point, that as a group we are to strive to understand one another rather than demand conformity.

The biggest problem I encounter with Scout leaders is when they decide they are going to use their position to promote agendas outside of Scouting. Whether it's politics, religion, or whatever floats their boat, once a leader starts making it up as they go they are as good as gone if I have anything to do with it. There are people who seek every opportunity to promote their own point of view at all costs and heap hatred on anyone who dare disagree with them. That kind of divisive person is more trouble than they're worth. Every conversation with them comes down to their personal axe they've been grinding furiously for years.

[trotsky]

21. Of course they promote gay bashing.

Indirectly, by teaching boys that there's something wrong with homosexuals.

Do you think it's OK for the scouts to exclude people based on their sexual orientation or their religious beliefs?

Why do you support an organization that does this? Doesn't sound very liberal or tolerant to me.

[Goblinmonger]

16. Then the Boy Scouts should stop taking government money

if they want to discriminate.

[darkstar3]

27. False.

You see, having been a Boy Scout, I know a little about this. The last point of the Scout Law is "reverent," and they are indeed interested in enforcing it. I was asked in my Eagle Scout board of review how I had upheld that specific part of the Scout Law, and I had to give a convincing answer. Two years later, when I was in college, I read about a boy who was denied his Eagle Scout award because he admitted to his board of review that he did not necessarily believe in any higher power.

Interfaith? Maybe. Tolerant of those with no belief in a higher power? Hell no.

And what's funny is that I wouldn't have known any of this if not for a roommate of mine, who had a saying every time the BSA was in the news: "Fuck the Straights Scouts of Christianity." After doing some reading, I came to agree.

[E_Pluribus_Unitarian]

11. The Boy Scouts need not be the only valid option...

The Unitarian Universalists have started Navigators in the USA, which is growing fast and could well spread beyond the USA. There's also the Camp Quest secular option to summer camps. We need not always jump through the BSA hoops.

http://navigatorsusa.ning.com/

[trotsky]

12. The Boy Scouts have an enormous advantage in the form of support with our tax dollars.

If they want to be exclusionary hateful religious assholes, fine. We've got plenty of those. But my tax dollars shouldn't support them.

[jeepnstein]

14. Tax dollars?

Please tell me about that. Who's getting these tax dollars because it sure isn't my local council.

[trotsky]

18. The Google is helpful

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2008/03/25/boy-scouts-get-federal-money-for-their-discrimination/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winkler_v._Rumsfeld

[TlalocW]

20. Tax dollars, programs with the military, use of public buildings like schools

Not every individual troop necessarily does I suppose - in my day we met at the house of a scout master, but there is a lot of tax money going to the scouts.

Penn and Teller dedicated an episode of Bullshit! to it.

Tlalocw

[cbayer]

19. If you don't believe in god, isn't taking an oath to do your duty to god pretty meaningless?

When I was doing a lot of court testimony, I was always asked to put my hand on a bible and swear to god that I was about to tell the truth.

This always bothered me, as it seemed that if one did not believe in god, this swearing in was pretty much giving them carte blanche to lie.

At any rate, I am much more disturbed by the BSA's actual discriminatory behavior towards both members and leaders than I am about some silly and meaningless group of words.

[trotsky]

22. Dunno, seems plenty of Christians have lied after taking an oath too.

Would appear to be meaningless for believers as well. Oaths are ridiculous no matter how you look at them.

[LeftishBrit]

23. Doesn't the Bible itself prohibit the swearing of oaths?

From Matthew, Chapter 5:

Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ 34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.


As an atheist, it doesn't bother me; but I always find it a bit strange that religious people insist on such oaths.

[trotsky]

25. I have other ways of knowing that tell me it's OK.

Or, uh, that part isn't meant to be taken literally.

Wait, I know, you took it out of context.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Goblinmonger]

26. I'm trying to put this in a non-assholeish way.

So the group, which takes government dollars and thus has to be held to the standards of the government, asks people to take a religious oath which they shouldn't by the government dollars situation. Those that are not religious but still have a right to be in the group due to the government dollars should just suck it up and say the oath because they don't really believe it? Seems kind of, I don't know, crappy for that to be the expectation. Plus, if the organization gets to go on with their crap without being called on it or told to stop, gets to go on thinking it is OK and make all their claims of superiority and others get to think making non-religious take a religious oath is fine. Finally we get numbers of the organization that look like there are more religious people than there are and then people on DU can talk about how few actual atheists there are because, look, the BSA are huge and they require a religious oath.

[darkstar3]

28. Please read #27. It goes far beyond the inconvenience of a few words.

No one should be forced to lie about themselves in order to belong, to succeed, to advance, or to lead.

[robertch]

29. Maybe it's for the best

I wouldn't let my child join that group regardless.

Plus, they are now being sued for sexual abuse.

Other link.

[MineralMan]

30. No court can require you to take an oath on a scripture or mention any deity.

That is settled law. I have testified in court a number of times, and have served on juries. In each case, I had the option to swear or affirm. I also served in the military, where the option to affirm the oath was always mentioned. My service dates back to 1965. The constitution also provides for the option to affirm, even in the stated oath of office for the President.

Americans are never required to swear oaths on any scripture or mention any deities. Never. You may not know that because you don't mind doing it. Those of us for which such an oath would be a lie are very conscious of our rights to affirm any oath.

It is very important that everyone know this. I cannot believe that an educated American does not know this.